The Whispers in the Darkness Online
by RatherPonderous
Summary: A new VRMMO has hit the scene, a game based on Lovecraftian horror known as 'The Whispers in the Darkness'. It has been applauded for its innovative immersion engine which tricks players into forgetting they are playing a video game, something that can and does have long term effects on its player base, leading to a controversy as big as the original Sword Art Online incident.


**Chapter 1: NEW GAME**

* * *

tag/vrmmo/whispersinthedarkness-thedarknesscurse

 **THE DARKNESS CURSE**

 **By Camel_Guy856**

 _Has anyone wondered the why it has taken so long for a horror VRMMO to appear? You might think it is because of a lack of originality, or inability to correctly implement horror in a multiplayer field, but that is false. See VRMMO's affact you, in ways you wouldn't understand. It is sutle, but no matter what Amusphere game you play, your mind can be altered. However, due to the nature of horor games, this affect is much stronger. Therefore it is quite easy for you to lose your mind whilst playing it. This may sound crazy, but why deos it have a sanity metre then? If you don't belief me, then what about the sword art online incident. I now they said amuspheres will never be able to affect the brain or trap you inside the game again because of the different system, but you are an idiot to trust them. They made the nervegear and now they made this the same problems will ocur. With the one on one pain effects, don't be surprised if the sanity metre in The Whispers in the Darkness is also one on one..._

* * *

I read the small, pointless blurb in the link my friend sent me. There was more to the article, but I had read all I need to know about it. "So, what do you think?" Tom asked, smiling, obviously trying not to start giggling.

I looked back at him, my face adequately showing I was not impressed in the slightest. "I really fucking hope that smile on your face means you know just how moronic this is right?"

"Yeah I do, I just wanted to see your reaction Jess."

I shook my head "I have no fucking reaction to this shit. It is nothing but conjecture and spelling mistakes. It literally isn't worth commenting on."

"Yeah but... I bet you don't want to buy that game now do you? I bet you are too scared to play Whispers now right?" Tom spoke in an obviously sarcastic way.

"Yeah you are right, I am so scared I will have to go and throw the game in the bin, and instead play 'My Little Pony, Hugs and Kisses Adventure' all holidays instead" I replied, my voice just as sarcastic as Tom's.

"Sounds fun!"

I nodded and switched my computer off, before I stood up and grabbed my bag. "Well my exam is done, and you got one coming up that I shouldn't be distracting you from. So I'm gonna split."

Tom nodded "Yeah, wish me luck."

"No. You don't deserve luck after showing me that stupid creepypasta."

"Harsh."

"Yeah well, get over it." I turned and walked away, mostly just eager to get home quickly, switch off and finally play that game. The one that Camel_Guy856 said would destroy my sanity. God that is a stupid online username, it really does sound like it was made by a 12 year old. And why the 856 at the end? Were there 855 other Camel_Guys? Are there 856 people in the world with naming tastes that bad? Actually I really wouldn't be surprised if there was that many people with that lack of taste.

* * *

I opened the door to my apartment slowly, I could swear more and more chips were appearing in the sides of that door each day. Once I stepped into our dingy house I was met with one of my roommates, a rather... well chunky looking girl named Allison. No chunky is too nice, I am going to be completely honest here and say she is a blubbernaught. She was sitting on the crappy couch we have, we got it really cheap and it is quite comfortable however it had been ripped up a fair bit and smelled ever so faintly of dog, no matter how many times I covered it with cleaning product. Also to be fair to our couch, most of our stuff is crappy, so it fits the theme we are going for. The life of poor university students, it is always this glamorous. Allison was using her MacBook, with an opened bag of chips sitting near her feet. "Hey Ali." I muttered as I started fiddling with my shoes.

"Hey Jess." She said, not looking up from her... Tumblr I think? I wasn't quite sure, I am out of the loop with social media. For shame I know but there you go. I literally only have the bare minimum social networking sites I need to get by and that's it. I have no problem with your main ones like Twitter and Facebook but I don't understand the other ones, and try to avoid them like the plague. Like what the hell is the point of half of them?

I sat down next to my fat roommate, my bag resting between us as I slipped off my shoes, throwing them softly into the 'shoe pile' that is literally that, a pile of shoes in the corner of our living room. Allison and I didn't speak at all, really because we barely knew each other. We lived together because we were mutual friends with the three other people that live here. It isn't to say we didn't get along, but we weren't on 'casual chat mode' yet, probably because we are both almost worryingly insular around new people.

Once my shoes and socks were off I picked my bag up, and without saying anything to Allison I stood up and walked up the staircase, trying to maintain composed as I prepared myself to play with my Amusphere. After spending the last two weeks studying and doing tests, I needed to use it again. I swear I was starting to experience withdrawal symptoms like some sort of meth addict. I was getting the jitters, I need the sphere man.

* * *

I beelined straight from the stairs to my room. I went to throw my bag onto my floor, but I stopped myself and gently placed the bag onto the floor, remembering I had a laptop in my bag. I closed the door, and locked it. I trusted my housemates, but I still didn't like the idea of people being able to barge in on me when I was essentially in a coma. It might be a fun technology coma but it is still a coma.

I walked to my wardrobe, first giving myself a once over in its built in, full length mirror. I always feel bad whenever I insult someone like Allison because whilst I was pretty thin I am rather plain I think. A tall, thin girl with a tiny bit of a natural tan to my skin and a token amount of make-up on my soft looking face. To be fair to me my hair is actually pretty nice, with a copper colouring to it and was currently styled in two pigtails, in my attempt to look like my favourite JRPG character (Rise Kujikawa, she is so wonderful). My outfit was simple too, just a long sleeved blue and white dotted shirt with a pair of black jeans. But how I looked didn't matter, I could look however I wanted when I was playing my game. So I slowly opened that the door. I reached into it, grabbing a large red and black headgear in my arms, and taking to my bed. I moved it around in my hands, it was a shiny new Amusphere, since my first one decided to essentially go 'yeah nah mate' about a month ago and short circuited on me in the middle of a raid. I moved my hand to the insert disk area, and pressed the eject button. Once I did, a disk whose cover was black with only the words 'The Whispers in the Darkness' in white came out. "I did put it in this morning." I muttered, before pushing it back into the helmet. I switched the thing on at the back, and it whirled into life. The lights on the helmet lit up as you could hear it begin to read the disk. I looked at the battery life on it, and the battery icon had all of its bars, and since it was new that meant it was going to last about 12 hours, and I aimed to drain the damn thing before I was done with it today.

I slowly sat down on my bed, making sure I felt comfortable before I slowly and cautiously slid the multi-coloured helmet onto my head, with my eyes closed. As I did I felt the helmet get a little hot and my head started to feel fuzzy, but that was normal. The two were just syncing up, it was worrying to use this at first especially given that whole 'sword art online' incident but as a seasoned loser who lies around all day using this stuff I am used to it. I lay down and opened my eyes, and I could see the green visor of the helmet was littered with shortcuts to stuff like the internet, YouTube, files stored on my network and the settings for the thing, but I ignored every single one of them and simply cleared my head before letting the phrase 'Start Game' flood into it. I blinked as I saw a few flashes, and well I don't know how it works. But essentially my consciousness was shot into the internet, leaving my body lying there limp and stupid looking.

* * *

The next thing I knew I was in what looked like a void of complete darkness. There was no light, it was all black. I looked down, I could see myself, but I couldn't see the floor. But there was certainly floor, I could feel it with my shoeless feet, it felt similar to marble actually. I shivered due to the freezing temperature of the place as I slowly looked around at my surroundings. Everything looked exactly the same, just pure black. I didn't know what to do, but then I saw it. From the corner of my eye I saw something, something in the darkness. I looked closely at the thing in the distance, and saw that it was an eye. A huge, bloodshot eye that seemed to be leaking a light yellow coloured pus. The iris also lacked all colour, the eye just looked like it had one large pupil. The eye seemed to move, as if it was looking around the void for a few second, until it spotted me. The second the pupil focused on me it froze, and just sat there, staring at me. This bloodshot, pus-leaking eye was transfixed on me, and I was transfixed on it. I started to feel... insecure as I stared at the eye but I couldn't look away from it.

I continued this 'staring contest' of sorts with that discomforting and creepy eye in the void, until I saw something else move from the corner of my eye. I managed to pry myself away from the eye, to see another one had sprouted just beneath it. This second eye was an exact copy of the first eye. The red lines on the eyes were the same, the pus was leaking in a similar fashion, the iris had no colour and it did exactly what the first one did, looked around a little before it spotted me and became transfixed. "Oh god." I muttered, feeling genuine fear creep up into me as I looked up and saw them. These eyes... they were popping up everywhere. It seemed like they all randomly popped into existence and they all looked exactly the same, like they were all just reflections on mirrors. And just like the first one, once they found me they stared at me and never looked away.

My eyes widened, and I took a step back slowly. I couldn't help but notice the eyes followed me, making sure their black pupils were locked onto me. I took another step back, and my bare feet could feel something squishy underneath me. I looked down, there was an eye on the ground, and despite the fact I was standing on it, it didn't react. It just leaked pus, and stared at me in the same apathetic way they all did. I quickly moved my foot off of the thing before any of the pus hit me, and started to look around. The void was gone, there was no more darkness anymore. Now it was all eyes, all the same eye, all looking at me like they were staring straight through me.

As I noticed that I was completely surrounded by eyes, I suddenly felt... empty inside. I may have felt off before, but this hit me like a sack of bricks. I just felt so... lonely. No that wasn't it, I just felt... fear. I don't know why I felt it, but it had taken over me so strongly I couldn't stand anymore. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, the more I looked at the eyes the worse I felt, but I couldn't look away from them, they were everywhere. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT WITH ME?" I shouted at one of them, tears in my eyes. But they didn't react, they just stared at me, completely ignoring what they were doing to me. Like they wanted this to happen all along. I could feel myself panting rapidly as I heard tears hit the ground, at the time I had no idea what was happening to my body. It just happened so suddenly, I felt scared, empty, confused, alone, miserable and disgusted.

As I sat there, shaking and crying I felt something in my right hand. It just appeared there, but I was holding it. It was cold and metallic, but somehow it felt comforting. I slowly moved my right hand into my view, and got a good glimpse of this thing. It was a gun, a pistol to be exact. I don't know what type of gun it was, and I didn't care. But for some reason the second I saw it I felt warm and happy. I single thought went through my head, and that thought made me smile. I was going to be free... free from this feeling. The emptiness, the loneliness, the eyes, the pain and the tears were all about to be gone. I slowly moved the gun into my mouth, and pointed it up. So that there was no way I could miss my brain. "Fuck you all!" I shouted, or I tried to anyway, it sounded really muffled considering a gun was in my mouth. I pulled the trigger with all of my strength and heard a loud and brief bang, before darkness covered my vision once more. And that was the first time I died in this game.


End file.
